The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.

True character arises from a deeper well than religion.

This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.

E. O. Wilson

If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

E. O. Wilson

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.

E. O. Wilson

Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it’s a map with constant immediate sensory input.

E. O. Wilson

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way.

E. O. Wilson

In some ways, I had a traditional ‘old South’ upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an

E. O. Wilson

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.

E. O. Wilson

The two major challenges for the 21st century are to improve the economic situation of the majority and save as much of the planet as we can.

E. O. Wilson

A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.

E. O. Wilson